Tuesday, 27 November 2012

Let me start by saying this post is REALLY embarrassing for me! I've had this post in my draft folder for a while now but I just couldn't bring myself to hit that big orange 'Publish' button. I'm really not good at talking about my insecurities, it consumes my thoughts so much but I very rarely let it out and have a real conversation about it. But I just want to get this out and hopefully someone else suffering from hair loss will find this product useful like I have.

A couple weeks back I shared with you that I have PCOS which has led me suffered from severe hair fall. If you missed it then you can read my earlier post here. Today I want introduce you to a product with has helped me to conceal the hairfall and has made me feel much more confident.

It was actually my best friend's mum who gave me a bottle of Nanogen Nanofibres first. She also has thinned out hair along her parting and has tried so many different products over the years and this is the one product she recommends and buys over and over again. She could see that my hairloss was getting me down so she kindly gave me bottle of Nanofibres to use along with her legendary motherly pep talks lol!

At first I was quite reluctant to use it as I was worried it would look fake and I didn't want to look like I had dyed my scalp black or something crazy like that. But when I tried it actually looked really good and totally natural!

PRODUCT

So lets talk about the product itself...Nanofibres are very fine little fibres that look almost like dust but are coloured to match your hair colour (I have black but there are also other shades to pick from here). The good thing about the fibres is that are actually made of keratin! Keratin is what the outer layer of our hair is naturally made of so I think this is one of the reasons why it looks so natural.

The Nanofibres are electrostatically charged so that they stick to your hair and don't just fall to your scalp.

This I think is key to the product...because the fibres stick to each hair follicle it actually makes your hair look thicker and it works with the natural wave and bounce of your hair. What I mean by this is...if you look in the mirror you will see...or I do at least...that my hair doesn't just fall flat but it lifts up a little at the roots then drops down. So because the Nanofibres cling onto the hair it also goes with the natural flow of your hair making it look more volumised.

As you can imagine the electrostatic charge doesn't last all day...its really to get the fibres into the place and stop it from falling down to the scalp. So to keep the fibres in place we then need to use the Nanogen 'Locking Mist'. The Locking Mist is like a hairspray to hold all the fibres in place. I did try using a regular hairspray just to see if it worked but it didn't unfortunately.

PACKAGING AND HOW TO USE

The Nanofibres come in a sturdy shaker type tub with holes on the top which allow the product come out. Its really easy to use, you just use the tub to sprinkle the product onto your hair until you get the coverage you are looking for then you spritz on the Locking Mist to set for the rest of the day!

PERFORMANCE
I've found that I can get away with using this product for two days straight..just giving it a little touch-up and spray with Locking Mist on the second day. I think this will vary from person to person though depending on how much you touch your hair etc.

Ok so here goes...the scary bit...my big reveal! Oh jeez this is so embarrasing!! I have say that it actually looks much worse in the photo than it does in real life...honest! I dont know what why the camera makes it look so much more sparse than it look in real life.

I hope that some people will find this useful...I'm sure I can't be the only woman suffering from this. I just wanted to share this because as you can see it makes a huge difference to my hair and it doesn't look fake at all...it just looks like my own hair....pretty genius in my opinion! Bonus is that its even given my hair a little extra volume. Most importantly its given me so much more confidence...I don't worry now that people are looking at my head because it just looks normal.

Nanogen Nanofibres are priced £18.95 for 1 months supply and the Nanogen Fibre Locking Mist is £11.95 for 2 months supply. Both are available from Boots here and are normally part of their 3 for 2 offers. They come in a range of 10 different colours (here) so you should find a shade that suits you.

I didn't want to bombard this post with too many photo's but if you would like to see more pics of the products and packaging including the ingredients...I have added them to my Facebook page here.

For more information about the product itself you can visit Nanogen's website here

Monday, 26 November 2012

Whenever I stay over at friends houses I can't resist having a sneaky peek in their bathroom cabinets...I think it must be the beauty lover in me..well that and I'm a little nosy lol! So I thought maybe you might be interested to see whats in mine...

I actually keep some things in my cabinet and some on the windowsill near my shower but for this post I just put everything in the cabinet :-)

I also thought I would show you the other little things in my bathroom...

Timotei Vivid Colour Shampoo and Conditioner here- I've been using this for most of this year. It's really gentle on my fine hair but works well and smells absolutely gorgeous...do you remember the blueberry hubba bubba from when we were kids? Yeah it smells exactly like that! The conditioner pictured is from the 'fresh and strong' range which I bought for the first time this week because they ran out of my usual 'vivid colour' one...typical just when I am doing this post!

Radox Cherry Blast Shower Gel - Heaven for me :-)

Imperial Leather Citrus Burst Hand wash - nice fresh lemon/lime scent

Hope you enjoyed poking around my bathroom! As you can see I'm a bit of a cleanser hoarder lol! What products are you enjoying right now?

Sunday, 25 November 2012

A few months ago I was lucky enough to be given my first pair of circle lenses to review by IszoCircleLens.com. Woohoo! I have to admit I have really bad eyesight...unfortunately I inherited my bad genes from my dad :-( I've been wearing contact lenses for over 10 years since I was 16 so I'm very experienced in using them.

The lenses were sent by registered post from Malaysia where Iszo are based and arrived in less than 2 weeks from Malaysia. Thankfully I didn't get any customs charges either! The lenses were well protected in bubble wrap and came in a cute organza bag...a nice little touch to make the delivery feel even more special like I was receiving a gift :-)

The pair I received were called 'Candarae Brown' circle lenses....

Diameter : 14.5mm

Base Curve : 8.6mm

Water content : 38%

Lens lifespend : 1 year

Certs : ISO 13485, CE 1293

Manufacturer : The Dolly Eye

Price: $22

I'm wearing contact lenses so I found them really easy to pop in. I usually wear the lenses for around 12 hrs and they feel comfortable for most of the day. I actually have dry eyes (yes thats a real thing...my optician told me lol) so I normally go for a higher water content lens than these normally. Overall the lenses are comfortable, its just because I have dodgy eyes they began to feel a little dry towards the end of the day.

I've been wearing these lenses for almost three months and I really like them. At first it was a little strange seeing my eyes look so big and whenever I passed a mirror I would steal a glance and think..woah! But I actually really love the effect, its makes me look so awake! And the thing I really liked about these are that even though they are patterned (which I was a little scared of when I first saw the photo of them) , they are quite subtle and elegant....just giving me a hint of golden hues.

All Iszo lenses also come with a cute little lens case like the one before. I didn't use them because they were a little impractical for me. Each of my eyes need a different power of lens so I always use cases which are label left and right just so that I'm always sure that I am putting the correct lens in each eye.

I would highly recommend Iszo lenses, the service I received from them was impeccable. They answered all my emails and questions very quickly with kindness and efficiency. They have a huge range of lenses so go check them out here! :-)

Cherry Lane xoxoNote: This is a sponsored post but my review is written with honesty and integrity :-)

Friday, 23 November 2012

Hiya! This is just a quick post about some of the Black Friday sales in the UK and available to the UK. In case your don't know, Black Friday is the biggest sale event in the American calender. Every year the day after Thanks Giving is known as Black Friday and all the retailers in US have huge mega sales. This tradition is now starting to spill over into the UK too so I wanted to share with you the sales I know about available to us UK customers and also a few that are available interntionally. If you know of any other's please comment below! :-)

Tuesday, 20 November 2012

I am so excited about this post I could actually burst!! Check out this amazing package from Dhara from The Happi Therapy blog in India!

I 'met' Dhara earlier this year and as soon as we started chatting that was it...it was like I had found a long lost sister! We became friends instantly and even though we haven't met in person she has become such a great friend to me. She's totally addicted to make-up and is literally an expert when it comes to Mac products. I'm so happy that Dhara finally decided to start her own blog recently, sharing her knowledge and enviable make-up collection (just check out this post on all her green eyeliners alone!) with us all. But her real passion is nail polish! She is a polish fiend! What she doesn't know about polish, isn't worth knowing...ok maybe that's a slight exaggeration lol but she knows her stuff! You might remember the gorgeous Revlon polish she reviewed for my blog recently.

So a few months back Dhara said she wanted to send me a few things and I was so excited I wanted to return the kind gesture and send her some things too so we spent a few months planning, dropping hints and getting so excited about it all then once the packages had shipped there were all kinds of delays but finally I received her box and I was soo happy with it!! Here are the goodies....

Lakme Absolute Kohl Liner...this is was the one I really wanted to try!

The best thing was this beautiful note Dhara wrote for me...I will cherish it forever :-)

Thank you so much Dhara for these gorgeous gifts! I absolutely love them! As soon as the box arrived I ripped everything open and started swatching and trying everything lol! Totally in love with the Colorbar Jaded iGlide and the Lakme kohl liner. I will posting swatches and reviews of these soon!

Monday, 5 November 2012

I wanted to share with you part of myself which I normally don't feel comfortable talking about even with my friends because I'm a pretty shy person.

I have Polycystic ovary syndrome or PCOS as its commonly known as. Its something that has affected me since I was at university. There are many different symptoms of PCOS. Some lucky ones might only be affected mildly whilst others may suffer from symptoms such as irregular menstruation cycles, acne, weight gain, excess hair in the places you don't want it and hair loss in the place you do want it! I wont go into the details of the condition because I'm sure you can Google it and find much better descriptions that I could ever give. But I wanted to share with you one of the symptoms that I have experienced personally and that is severe hair loss.

When I was younger I had really thick strong shiny hair but as I got older my hair shed more and more. Over the past 5 years in particular I noticed the crown of my head thinning more. When I look at photo's of myself I can see that my hair near my parting has thinned out alot and my scalp is particularly visible. I felt so embarrassed by it and it has really affected my confidence.

Over the past few years I have made a conscious effort to take care of my hair as much as possible...

Washing my hair every other day or less if I can get away with it with the help of dry shampoos

Using mild shampoos, nothing harsh like the anti-dandruff ones

Reduced heat considerably, drying naturally as often as possible

Using the low heat setting on my hairdryer to straighten and style my hair rather than straightners

All this has really helped the condition of my hair making it feels stronger and more nourished. I've also noticed that my hair can grow much longer too without needing a cut (around 2 inches) and I have more little hairs growing but sadly I haven't seen any significant improvements.

I have to admit I have never really used any products before which are specifically designed to stimulate hair growth because I have been reluctant to use harsh chemicals on my scalp in case it gets any worse. However I am about to start trying out a few products which have had clinically proven results for some people.

So this is my little heart to heart and my hair story so far. Over the next month or so I will feature a few products which I have been using recently to help me with my hair dilemma which I hope some people will find interesting.